Page 1235 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 April 2019

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Motion to take note of petition response

Motion (by Madam Speaker), pursuant to standing order 98A, agreed to:

That the petition response so lodged be noted.

Planning—development application assessments

MR PARTON (Brindabella) (10.02): I move:

That this Assembly:

(1) notes the:

(a) importance of an efficient development assessment system in achieving the Territory’s economic development objectives;

(b) vital role an efficient development assessment system plays in achieving the housing aspirations of the ACT community;

(c) average days to make a decision on a Development Application (DA) have increased from 62 days in mid-2018 to 90 days in January 2019;

(d) proportion of DAs decided within specified timeframes has fallen to 30 percent;

(e) significant schedule and financial losses these delays impose on individuals and companies that have submitted a DA;

(f) tenuous position this imposes on many applicants;

(g) negative impact on the ACT Government’s credibility and reputation arising from these delays; and

(h) impact on the health and wellbeing of overloaded planning staff caught up in this stressful problem; and

(2) calls on the ACT Government to:

(a) take immediate steps to increase resources allocated to the DA determination and approval process;

(b) undertake regular monitoring of DA workloads to ensure applicants’ requirements are met within prescribed timeframes;

(c) ensure staff in the DA assessment and processing areas are appropriately oversighted to avoid negative health impacts arising from stressful workload levels;

(d) provide a report for each quarter on DA assessment and processing that details the following:

(i) staffing strength at the beginning of the quarter, staff departures from the DA assessment area during the quarter, staff recruited or added to the assessment area during the quarter, and staff strength at the end of each quarter;

(ii) number of staff in each quarter on leave, including sick leave and other categories of leave;

(iii) the average number of DAs processed by each assessor during the quarter; and

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